House of Shadowsby Walter Spence

This is an interesting and unusual vampire story. The approach is very different from the traditional gothic horror but at the same time also far removed from the misunderstood and loveable creatures that we have grown used to in the past few years. 'The Breed' that Walter Spence introduces us to is something akin to a mysterious race. As the story unfolds and we learn about their traditions and history, we may not grow to like them but we do grow to understand them.

The story is written in the first person and, whilst I know that many readers prefer the third person, I think that is was a good choice in this instance. The gradual and seamless change in narrative tone shows the development of the main character, Eugene Evans, from child to adulthood is gradual and seamless and is only obvious by re-reading earlier chapters and comparing the difference. In fact, I thought that character development generally was very good.

I have only two criticisms. The first is that the ending felt a little rushed and I would have preferred the pace to have slowed down just a little. The second is that, although there were some very good similes, too many of them were in the first few pages of the book. However, the writing style overall is very good and neither of these criticisms are major problems so I would only remove one star for both of them taken together.